The following was written in response to Scott Burns’s poorly researched column on long-term care insurance (LTCi) published yesterday:

Your premise is fallacy-based; you do your readers a true disservice.

1. Medicaid dependency should never be complacently recommended to the broad middle class who have income and some wealth. Care in Medicaid facilities is already very substandard. More budget cuts are in store. Imagine how foul already foul Medicaid-paid care will be in 15 years when Boomers start accessing it en masse.
2. You pan the insurance industry. All it did was the responsible thing, unlike the government, which just “prints” money. The LTCi industry has shown prudent, responsible stewardship of LTCi. Policies will be honored when people need them. LTCi policies are now innovative and can be made reasonable for almost anyone willing to discuss them. The problem is people like you do not do your job as journalists and research properly. Many of your journalist peers “get” LTCi a lot better than you appear to. Columns like yours give the public more excuses to not have a conversation they prefer to avoid about responsible LTC planning. 22+ years of experience convince me this is the primary reason more do not own LTCi.
3. Where did you get your statistics? The statistics I have are that 70% of the public will need some type of LTC going forward from age 65. 50% of all LTCi policies pay. Average claim length is 2.5 years. At least 15% of claims last more than 5 years. I can introduce you to the leading LTCi actuaries who collect and interpret these statistics over many years. They will be glad to provide you with accurate information. You are hindering, not helping, your readers.